IFIGENIA IN A… ”| ONLINE PERFORMANCE

IFIGENIA IN A… ”| ONLINE PERFORMANCE

The performance (film recording of Euripides’ text) – 25-26 April 2020

In program:

Introduction by Włodzimierz Staniewski

20:00 IFIGENIA in Aulida “

Place: facebook.com/gardzienice

Iphigenia in A … based on Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulid, directed by Włodzimierz Staniewski, with music by Zygmunt Konieczny.


Performers: Mariusz Gołaj, Krzysztof Globisz (guest appearance), Joanna Holcgreber, Karolina Cicha, Marcin Mrowca, Agnieszka Mendel, Anna Dąbrowska, Ben Hitchins, Alexia Kokkali, graduates of the VI and VII Academy of Theater Practices “Gardzienice”, Greek actors, participants of the master class, residents of Delphi and Parnassus in Greece and Włodzimierz Staniewski.


The film was shot in historical and mythological places in Greece, including Delphi, on the peaks of Parnassus, in the Grotto of Corinth, on the islands of the Gulf of Corinth.

The screening will be preceded by an introduction by the director – Włodzimierz Staniewski.


The performance (film recording of Euripides’ text) is presented at the weekend of the previously planned Theater Marathons in Gardzienice.

Harmonogram projekcji:

FB Event: facebook.com/events/604742173717726/

NEW DIRECTIONS IN THEATER: IFIGENIA in A … STANIEWSKI AND ECOLOGY THEATER in DELFAS,

7-14 JULY 2008.

Last week, high on the slopes of Parnassus, a young woman stormed out of the Corinthian Grotto, cradling a little goat to her bare breast. The young woman is Iphigenia and the goat is Rosa, recently saved from a nearby farm. An unusual synthesis of myth and reality; both barely escaped death: the little goat Rosa was on the brink of beheading, and Iphigenia was to be consecrated to Artemis by her own father Agamemnon in a sin offering.

In Euripides’ drama, at the moment of completing the sacrifice on the altar, Artemis takes pity on Iphigenia and dies instead of the beast. On the Greek sheep farm, Włodzimierz Staniewski, a director of international renown, saves the doomed animal – and so both Rosa and Iphigenia are spared.

Rosa, now an important personality, is carried on the shoulders of a famous Polish actor to the accompaniment of ancient Greek mixed with melodic syllables of the Polish language, reflecting off the cracked rocks of Parnassus in front of the Korykejska Grotto – the place of the “symposium”. The symposium is just one of several events that constitute the culmination of many years of work and the fulfillment of Staniewski’s inspiration / dream – to “domesticate” the sacred surroundings of Delphi and Parnas again and to release “ancient energies”.

These events took place between 7 and 14 July under the auspices of the “Culture and Environment” program of the European Cultural Center in Delphi, led by Maro Nicolopoulou. The strongest accent was the participation of Staniewski and GARDZIENICE. It consisted of: July 7 and 8 – master classes, July 9 – expedition during which performances were held at selected “stations”, July 11 – a performance – “Iphigenia in Aulid” adapted by Staniewski – in the Frynichos amphitheater, and July 12 – discussion about the expedition at the Round Table in the Delphi Cultural Center, led by prof. David Wiles. These events were recorded as part of a film about “Iphigenia in Aulida” produced by Polskie Wydawnictwa Audiowizualne.

On July 9, the whole day was devoted to the expedition that started from Delphi and followed the Kaki Skala (devil’s stairs). It was interrupted by scenes from Iphigenia and a “symposium” in front of the Grotta Korykejska and ended with the performance of scenes from Metamorphoses at Agia Triada in the valley near the Grotta Korykejska, where the local people gathered together with about 100 participants of the Delphi conference. In the Metamorphoses Scenes based on Apuleius’s Golden Donkey, presented in front of the church of Agia Triada, guest appearances were two local donkeys that accompanied the expedition – Christoforos and his wife Patientia.

The participants of the procession are: musicians and the cast of Iphigenia in costumes from performances, 10 members of the Polish film crew, the above-mentioned donkeys and their guardians, and 15 black-clad apostles of the Civilization of Death (young Greek theater actors). They remained in their roles all the way, including stoppages for observation and participating in some scenes at selected “stations.” Among the stations were: Skała Straceń; an imposing mountain, or rather a rock, overlooking the Gulf of Corinth [1] and the sea of ​​olives beyond Delphi, the Grotto of Corinth, a boar farm, a water station and the slopes of Parnassus.

The symposium in front of the entrance to the Grotto was arranged around two lyrical Stasims from Iphigenia, full of references to love, music and wedding:

Stasimon I: ‘Happy are those who are in moderation and handsome

                   they experienced Aphrodite’s bed, in peace from crazy bites … “

Stasimon III: “What a melody was Hymenajos playing

                   On the Libyan reed with the kitara

                   A lover of choirs. “

Professor David Wiles (a theater scientist specializing in ancient Greece), dressed in Socratic attire, gave an oration about the need to renew the cult of Dionysian powers represented by the Grotto of Corinth.

July 11 – the full version of Iphigenia in A … in Staniewski’s adaptation – was staged in the Frynichos amphitheater – with Mariusz Gołaj as Agamemnon, Joanna Holcgreber as Klytajmestra, Karolina Cicha as Iphigenia and Krzysztof Globisz (guest appearance) as a messenger in the epejsodion – in speech the spectacle. The famous Polish actor, captured in the timeless image of a Greek shepherd carrying a young goat Rosa on his shoulders [2], lent his rich voice to the most moving text about “saving” Iphigenia.

In addition to the events in Delphi, several other scenes prepared for the film provided an opportunity for the intertwining of the planes of myth with the present (surrounding rural landscape, animals and vegetation). Actors from Gardzienice performed on mountain peaks, among the stalagmites of the Gota Korykejska – the sanctum sanctorum of ancient Greece.

In one of the scenes, Agamemnon (Mariusz Gołaj) and Menelaus (Marcin Mrowca) are bitterly arguing in the pen, surrounded by wild pigs. Demonic-looking boars rush from wall to wall in panic, like ricochets in the arguments of both characters. Chilling words materialize and transform into a bestial image.

Inside the Korykejska Grotto, Joanna Holcgreber, as Clytemnestra, from the dark depths of her soul, charges her husband with accusations. The dark gulf of the cave evidently reflects this and lends its bottomless depth to the dark recesses of her psyche.

On the Rock of Deaths [3] Krzysztof Globisz, secured by Staniewski and by a climber, exclaims a sibylical text:

“And Pergamon, Phrygian city,

He will surround the stone towers with bloody Ares,

Beheaded heads will fall, it will jerk … “

The Rocks of Parnassus resonate within us – could it be an apocalyptic prophecy of the impending future of our world?

Two hundred Parnassus goats (incarnation of the ancient satyrs) surround Agamemnon (Mariusz Gołaj) and his servant (Esztella Levko) during their dialogue with the Prologue.

Young actresses swim to a small empty island, a wild splinter of land in the waters of the Gulf of Corinth near Galaxidi, perform a parodos:

“I came to the sands

On the bank of Aulida, lying

By the sea, by the swift currents

Euripu of narrow straits I have wandered

I left Chalcis, my mother city … “

Finally, representatives of the local local population were involved in this multi-level event – from Delphi, from Arachowa and from Galaxidi – shepherds, guides, suppliers, owners of fishing boats, gypsy musicians – their contribution is not only invaluable knowledge of what-and-how and work but also their own stories and hospitality, so that they became an essential part of the project.

Thus, Staniewski guided the course of several currents of energy concentrated in places saturated with myth, where the text and music of Iphigenia drew from the surrounding nature (vegetation, landscapes, animals), at the same time enriching it with meaning.

This excellent project certainly opens up new perspectives for the theater.

It shows that Staniewski’s idea of ​​theatrical ecology (from oikos, which in Greek means home, formulated for the first time in 1977) can cross borders worldwide. Staniewski’s intention is to revive theater as the environment – a kind of eco-system – in which apocryphal moments of mutual coexistence of plants, animals, landscape and people can be reflected in art.

Now we are waiting for the film Iphigenia w A … with beautiful pictures by Wojciech Staroń, the most talented Polish cinematographer of the young generation. It should be released at the end of this year.

IFIGEANIA in A …

Włodzimierz Staniewski’s theater essay based on Euripides’ Iphigenia in Aulis.

Translation (Polish) – Jerzy Łanowski

Translation (English) – Charles Walker

Translation (Greek) – Myris

Director of photography – Wojciech Staroń

ACTORS

Mariusz Gołaj, Marcin Mrowca, Joanna Holcgreber, Anna Dąbrowska, Esztella Levko, Karolina Cicha, Agnieszka Mendel, Benedict Hitchins, Alexia Kokkali and graduates of the Academy of Theater Practices in Gardzienice.

Guest: Krzysztof Globisz.

The performance was co-produced by the Gardzienice Center for Theater Practices and the National Stary Theater in Krakow.

[1] In the place where, according to legend, Aesop was thrown from above

[2] Like moschphoros in a timeless painting from the archaic and classical era, and today like the familiar sight of a Greek peasant carrying his “prize” – a goat or a sheep winning the race.

[3] Depending on the source – included in the Fedriad – or the rock from which the blasphemers were thrown- or the Rock of Skiriana, from which Scirion (killed by Theseus) dropped his victims as they bent down to wash his feet.

Downloads

ZAKLADANY-HARMONOGRAM-REALIZACJI-FILMU-IFIGENIA-W-A-wersja-ostateczna.pdf